


Ever Increasing Demands

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [64]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyle is ill and Lester is contemplating murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever Increasing Demands

Lester leaned against the wall of the cave and waited while Lyle flopped down onto his stomach in the mud and started to wriggle slowly into the squeeze. The passage roof came down almost to the floor and the remaining space was still nearly half-full of water, in spite of the fact that their fleece undersuits had managed to soak up a fair amount on their way through, an hour ago.

He was thinner than Lyle and always had an easier time with this particular manoeuvre than his lover did but even so, Lyle was younger than him by eight years and was a good deal fitter, so the soldier still normally managed to wriggle through almost as quickly as Lester could. But today even the Special Forces lieutenant seemed to be making heavy weather of the squeeze, which brought a wry smile of sympathy to Lester’s mud-stained face.

“Regretting that last pint, my little possum?” he asked, unsympathetically.

A grunt was all the answer he got.

Lester raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. It wasn’t like Lyle to pass up the chance of trading insults. Maybe he really did have a hangover, although he hadn’t acted like he’d been under the weather when Lester had been struggling to keep up with him on the way into the cave.

When Lyle’s boots finally disappeared under the lip of rock, it was Lester’s turn to get cold and wet again. He curled up on his side on the gravelly floor and made sure Lyle hadn’t made the squeeze worse by dragging any rocks into it with his boots. Lester had nearly come a cropper like that a few months ago when he’d ended up stuck in the narrow space with a rock firmly wedged under his ribs, preventing forward progress and leaving him with his mouth underwater. He’d had to shove himself backwards very hard to rectify the situation and had ended up with badly bruised ribs. Lester was determined not to repeat that somewhat inglorious performance.

Once he was sure there was nothing to impede his progress other than water and gravel, he stretched out on his stomach, pushed his hands forward and started to inch forward. His head was soon at the tightest point, his helmet scraping against the roof as he did his best to keep his nose and mouth above water. Lester pressed down with his elbows and wriggled until his shoulders were through and he could lift his head off the floor of the passage. As soon as he reached that stage, another couple of wriggles saw him out on the other side and up on his hands and knees, water streaming out from where it had gathered in the side of his helmet, to run in muddy rivulets down his face.

To his surprise, Lyle was squatting down on his haunches by one wall instead of having started out on the last section of crawls on the way to the head of the pitch that led down into the lower section of the cave. Lyle was leaning back against the rock and he seemed to breathing more heavily than usual.

“Jon?” Lester’s first thought was that bad air was the culprit, but his own breathing seemed to be fine and their hadn’t been any recent reports of raised CO2 levels in this area of the cave for a long time.

Lyle looked up, his face pale under the mud. “I think I’ve got that bloody bug.”

“Oh shit.” Lester stared down at him. Moving fast, they were no more than half an hour from the entrance, but if Lyle was already feeling ill they could be in for a rather interesting time.

There had been some sort of bug running rampant through the ARC’s staff in the past week. It had started with one of the lab technicians and had rapidly spread to the science teams and the military contingent. Some anxious calls by their medical staff to local GPs quickly ascertained that there was, as the medical profession liked to put it, a lot of it about. Ditzy had examined those affected and promptly sent them home with orders not to come back until they felt better. Symptoms started with a general feeling of weakness and were followed quickly by sickness and diarrhoea, combined in most cases with headaches and stomach cramps.

The real problem was the speed with which the illness progressed. Cutter had ended up being half-carried back through an anomaly after a very brief expedition to return a couple of unwanted visitors to their own time. The following day, Connor had managed to pass out in the atrium while he was trying to fix a problem with his new detection device, after stubbornly ignoring everyone’s best efforts to make him go home.

Lyle managed to dredge up the ghost of a grin. “Come on. I need to get out of here before I start throwing up.”

Carefully not mentioning the other problems he might be about to face, Lester held his hand down and hauled Lyle to his feet. The next section of passage was an easy hands and knees crawl over a smooth stalagmite floor, followed by a three metre-long wriggle in a tighter section with a cobbled floor – thankfully dry at the moment – that led to the head of a short ladder pitch.

By the time he heard Lyle struggling out of the second section of the crawl, Lester knew his lover was losing strength fast and he did his best not to contemplate the steep and relentless haul back up Main Chamber and the Gorge, two of the largest sections of passage in the cave, which climbed steadily back to the surface up a series of inclined passages and short climbs. None of these were particularly taxing under normal circumstances but if Lyle deteriorated as fast under the insidious onslaught of sickness as Lester had seen others do in the past week, they were in for a rough ride.

By the time Lester emerged onto the rock shelf above the five-metre pitch, Lyle had already rigged the life-line and tied the rope around his waist. “I’ll be all right,” he said, in answer to Lester’s unspoken question.

“I’ll come back for the ladder tomorrow,” Lester said, preparing himself to take Lyle’s weight on the rope if he needed to.

Lyle shook his head stubbornly. “We’re not leaving the kit behind.”

“It’ll be quicker to leave it.”

“I might need it on the way out, James,” Lyle said quietly.

Lyle’s words hammered home to Lester the seriousness of their situation and brought him up short. They were in a potential rescue situation and he needed to recognise that. Lyle was right; leaving tackle behind that they might end up needing was not a good idea.

The descent of the pitch was actually more straightforward than Lester had anticipated. Lyle climbed quickly and, once down, was able to hold the rope in the usual way, threaded through the bolt at the head of the pitch to enable the ladder to be pulled down after them. He kept it taut while Lester made his way down the thin, flexible ladder to join him.

“Start moving,” Lester said, grabbing one end of the ladder and starting to wind it up into a coil for carrying.

Lyle nodded and struggled to his feet again. Lester kept an eye on his progress while he was coiling the ladder then stuffing it and the rope into a tackle-bag. The soldier was moving slowly and carefully, but at least he was still able to walk and climb. Lester caught him up a couple of minutes later at the base of a 13-metre drop, broken into two in the middle where it opened out into a ledge under a waterfall before rounding a corner and sloping upwards steeply.

“Jon, you need a line on this.” It wasn’t an easy pitch to lifeline someone on, and their rope would be barely long enough, but Lyle was already swaying on his feet.

“Take too fucking long. I’ll be all right.”

“If you fall off, I’ll never live it down. Ralph will have both of our guts for garters if I let you climb this unprotected in your state, so shut the fuck up and do as you’re told for once in your life, Lieutenant.”

“I love it when you’re masterful, darling,” Lyle muttered, but it was the last joke he managed for the rest of the trip.

By the time Lyle had struggled up both sections of the pitch, he was white-faced and sweating heavily. Lester gave him a few minutes to rest before urging him on again. He had a choice of leaving Lyle behind and going out by himself to fetch help, or doing his best to keep his lover moving, in the hope that he would have enough strength to make it to the surface under his own steam.

There were several occasions on the trip when Lester was almost ready to sit down and accept defeat. At times, Lyle was a dead weight in his arms as Lester tried various tactics to keep him on his feet. He was actually amazed that Lyle was managing to move at all, an hour and a half after the onset of the bug. By that time, most people had been either flat on their backs or wrapped around a toilet, wondering which end to point at it next.

Lester was certain that the only thing keeping Lyle moving was his refusal to break his record of never having been rescued from a cave. Metre by painful metre they made their way back towards daylight. Eventually, Lester pushed Lyle up through the final hole into the small blockhouse that protected the entrance to the cave from unauthorised access and pulled back the bolt in the rusty metal door, swinging it open to let in the cool outside air. Getting Lyle up the last few metres wasn’t an easy task, either, but at last they were both standing outside in a muddy-floored hollow in the Mendip Hills, overhung by elder trees and surrounded by bracken.

Lyle summoned up a weak grin before lurching to one side and throwing up copiously into the undergrowth. “Wouldn’t have been popular if I’d done that down there,” he commented shakily, leaning against the squat, breezeblock structure and wiping his mouth on the back of a very muddy hand.

Lester grinned. “Better out than in, darling.” He slipped his arm around Lyle’s waist. “Come on, we’ll have you back at the cottage in half an hour.”

“Good job we brought the Land Rover and not your Merc.”

“My Merc isn’t exactly the most suitable vehicle for caving, but if you do have to throw up again, do it out of the window, there’s a good lad.”

He ended up having to stop three times for Lyle to be violently sick on their way over the hills and back to the cottage Lester shared ownership of with his brother, Ralph. Lester finally pulled the car onto the gravel drive at the end of the long drove road that led to the small, stone building. The last hurdle he had to accomplish was getting Lyle out of his caving gear, which was actually easier said than done. But eventually he got Lyle stripped down to his underwear just in time for his lover to make a wobbly dash for the downstairs loo.

Lester quickly stripped off his own kit and followed Lyle into the cottage. The phone was ringing as he went in through the door, the limestone-flagged floor cold under his bare feet. After pausing to check that Lyle had actually made it as far as his intended destination, he grabbed the phone. “Lester.”

“James, is Jon all right?” The woman on the other end of the line didn’t believe in wasting time on social niceties, but few mothers did when they were concerned about their offspring.

“Julia? How on earth…”

“Answer the fucking question!” she snapped.

He laughed, the tension of the last couple of hours starting to drain out of him now he’d got his lover back to the safety of the cottage. “I’m sorry. Yes, he’s fine. Well, no, actually he’s throwing his guts up and probably leaking from the other end as well, but he’ll be fine in a couple of days when this bloody bug runs its course. How did you know there was a problem?” They were still two hours in advance of their call-out time and anyway, the person waiting for the call to say they were safely out of the cave was Ditzy, back at the ARC, not Lyle’s mother. There was no way she could even have known they were underground.

“Who do you think the little sod inherited his thumbs from?” Julia Denton said with a sigh. “And why the hell do you think I always wanted him to become an accountant? Sorry I snapped, James. I’ve been going out of my mind for the last couple of hours. I tried ringing the ARC, but no one was saying anything.”

“Julia, how the fuck do you know about the ARC?” Lester demanded, wondering what havoc the woman had just managed to wreak in his working life.

“It may have escaped your notice, James, but I do happen to be an investigative journalist.”

“You’re meant to be retired,” Lester said weakly, remembering all too well the interrogation they’d both been on the receiving end of during dinner the previous month with Lyle’s mother in London.

“Tabloid hacks never retire, sweetie, not when there’s a story to be had.” Julia Denton’s gravelly voice betrayed her love of cigarettes and was currently laden with a mixture of amusement and relief. “Phone me later and tell me how he’s getting on. You’ve got my mobile number.” With that, the phone went dead, leaving Lester staring at it in exasperation.

A moment later, it rang again. This time it was Ditzy. “David. Yes, we’re both fine. Jon’s gone down with that bloody bug but he’s out… yes, it did get a bit hair-raising at times, but all I have to do now is get him showered and into bed. Tell whoever had the misfortune to take the calls that the force of nature they encountered was Lyle’s doting parent.”

Ditzy laughed. “Yes, we worked that one out, sir. Lorraine took the calls. Make sure he keeps his fluid intake up, get some paracetamol and codeine down him and he’ll be fine. But I warn you, he’s a lousy patient.”

* * * * *

By the following morning, Lester was beginning to think that the words lousy patient were the biggest understatement he’d heard since someone had described Cutter as slightly stubborn.

The bedroom was either too hot or too cold. Lyle himself was either too hot or too cold. The pillows were lumpy, the bed linen was scratchy. He wanted the radio on. He wanted the radio off five minutes later because it was giving him a headache. He wanted a hot honey and lemon then he couldn’t drink it because it made him feel sick. After a day of that, Lester was beginning to wonder how much could be used in a plea of mitigation when he finally gave in to his instincts and battered Lyle to death with a lump-hammer.

Lyle’s mother was monitoring her little boy’s progress by telephone and Lester was convinced she was doing it simply because she enjoyed winding him up. He’d been patiently instructed how Lyle liked his hot drinks (one thick slice of lemon, two teaspoonfuls of honey, a large tot of whisky) and taught how to make something he might actually deign to eat. Somewhat to Lester’s surprise, this had consisted of soft-boiled eggs mixed with a knob of butter, a dash of malt vinegar and a sprinkling of salt and pepper (white, not black), and served in a heated mug. Not a cup, a mug. Preferably Lyle’s favourite mug. Heated up first.

By the time he’d finally got Lyle to stop plaguing the life out of him and watched him fall asleep, Lester was beginning to think that the only way he’d get some respite would be by going down with the bloody bug himself, but so far he’d proved remarkably resistant to it.

The phone rang and Lester grabbed it before it had chance to wake up the fiend from hell currently passing itself off as his boyfriend. “Has he started demanding his favourite blanky yet?” Julia Denton asked, sounding just as amused as she’d done when instructing him on the exact dimensions of Lyle’s toast soldiers.

“He hasn’t got a favourite blanky!”

“Won’t stop the little bugger demanding one,” Julia said, with all the smugness of someone who was several thousand miles away in another country.

Lester closed his eyes, wondering if murder really was the only sensible answer. “Julia, I am in a cottage in the middle of the Mendips. This is rural England at the weekend. Where the hell am I going to get a bloody blanket from if he doesn’t like the ones I’ve got here?”

She chuckled unsympathetically. “He won’t like any of ‘em, you can bet your knighthood on that.”

“He’s already threatening to come downstairs tomorrow so he can lie on the sofa in front of the fire,” Lester said dismally. Blankets hadn’t been mentioned yet, but forewarned was clearly forearmed.

“If he’s lying on the sofa, he’ll be demanding a blanky by lunchtime.”

Lester groaned. “How the hell did he survive infancy?”

“I’m a woman of infinite patience, I keep telling you that.” She sighed theatrically. Nobody believes me.” Her sigh turned into a full-throated laugh. “And my husbands have always been strangely attached to the little bugger, God knows why. I’d have drowned him at birth if I’d had my way.”

The call ended as abruptly as it always did with Julia, leaving Lester to go in search of a large whisky and wonder whether he could find a virgin sacrifice to appease whatever uncaring god had decided to inflict a sick Lyle on him. After he’d got up twice in the night to provide drinks of cold water and, on the second occasion, more paracetamol, Lester had given up trying to get any sleep and had retired downstairs instead, still gloomily contemplating what sort of blanket he was going to be able to produce when Lyle’s mother’s predictions came true.

* * * * *

“Who was that at the door?” Lyle demanded, shuffling into the main room of the cottage in an old dressing-gown and a pair of dilapidated slippers.

He looked pale and was clearly still shaky on his feet, but it looked like the bug was finally starting to run its course. According to Ditzy, it usually took a day or so for those who’d been infected to get over the vomiting and diarrhoea, and then anything between three to seven days to be fit enough for work. Cutter had tried coming back after four days but the imperturbable medic had simply ordered one of the soldiers to take him home and make sure he stayed there.

“Marilyn, bringing some bread, milk and eggs. Can I get you anything?”

“A cup of tea?” Lyle settled down on sofa and promptly grimaced at the cushions as though they’d mortally offended him. “Can I have my pillow?”

After half an hour that consisted of Lester making a couple of tea (followed by another hot honey and lemon when Lyle decided that he wasn’t feeling well enough for tea), fetching three different pillows, turning the radio on and off the statutory number of times (four), Lyle’s demands finally seemed to have fizzled out.

Lester lowered himself into an armchair and closed his eyes, wondering what his chances were of catching up on some sleep. He was just starting to drift off when Lyle’s voice jerked him back to wakefulness.

“I’m cold.”

“I’ll put some more wood on the fire.” He picked up an over glove and threw two logs into the wood-burning stove. He knew exactly what was coming next.

“Can I have a blanky?”

“There’s one on the back of the sofa.”

Lyle pulled a face. “It’s scratchy.”

“It’s fleece.”

“It’s still scratchy. I want a soft blanky.” There was an unmistakeable gleam of amusement in Lyle’s hazel eyes. “I want my favourite blanky.”

Lester smiled serenely at his lover and walked over to a cupboard by the front door. He pulled out a large, chocolate brown blanket and walked over to the sofa, then solemnly draped it over Lyle, tucked it in around him and then stepped back to admire his handiwork.

Lyle reached out a hand and ran it over the fleecy material. Lester knew perfectly well he wouldn’t be able to dismiss this particular blanket as scratchy. The object in question had more than lived up to the description of ‘the softest blanket ever’. Lester had finally found it after a long and increasingly involved series of internet searches. It was not only fleecy and warm, but it also actually felt like a soft toy. In fact it felt like the softest soft toy in the entire history of soft toys.

He waited with some trepidation. If this didn’t work he really would have to fetch the lump-hammer.

Lyle rubbed his hand over the blanket again experimentally. Then he pulled it up around him and sank back against the pillows, a grin forming amidst the dark stubble on his face. “You do still love me,” he declared, managing to look more like a dopey kid than a Special Forces lieutenant.

“Is that your favourite blanky?” Lester asked, dropping to his knees next to the sofa and eyeing his lover with amusement.

“It’s my favourite blanky ever.”

“It’s not scratchy?”

Lyle shook his head.

“It’s the right colour?”

Lyle nodded.

Lester heaved a mental sigh of relief. He could no doubt give the other three (cream, green and camel) away as Christmas presents. “Can I get you anything else, Jon?”

“A cuddle?” said Lyle hopefully.

It was Lester’s turn to grin. It looked like he’d finally banished the demon and got his boyfriend back. The time he’d spent on the phone that morning finding the things and arranging for them to be delivered by courier, had paid off.

Now all he had to do was arrange for a case of Lyle’s mother’s favourite Scotch to be delivered to her in Spain.


End file.
